III. AT ROME. Is this, ye Gods, the Capitolian Hill? Destroy the ideal Power within, 'twere done Thro' what men see and touch,-slaves wandering on, Impelled by thirst of all but Heaven-taught skill. Full oft, our wish obtained, deeply we sign; Yet not unrecompensed are they who learn, From that depression raised, to mount on high With stronger wing, more clearly to discern Eternal things; and, if need be, defy Change, with a brow not insolent, though stern. IV. PLEA FOR THE HISTORIAN. FORBEAR to deem the Chronicler unwise, Ungentle, or untouched by seemly ruth, Who, gathering up all that Time's envious tooth Has spared of sound and grave realities, AT ROME, REGRETS.-IN ALLUSION TO That might have drawn down Clio from the skies way, A gratulation from that vagrant Voice For see, Laverna! mark the far-famed High on the brink of that prec.p.tous rock, Nay-though the hopes that drew, the fears that drove, St. Francis, far from Man's resort, to abide To bind his spiritual Progeny, with rules Doth sometimes here predominate, and works By unsought means for gracious purposes; For earth through heaven, for heaven, by changeful earth, Illustrated, and mutally endeared. Rapt though He were above the power of sense, Familiarly, yet out of the cleansed heart Drawn to his side by look or act of love As to be likened in his Followers' minds From their high state darkened the Earth with fear. Held with all Kinds in Eden's blissful bowers. Then question not that, 'mid the austere Band, Who breathe the air he breathed, tread where he trod, Some true Partakers of his loving spirit Do still survive, and, with those gentle hearts Consorted, Others, in the power, the faith, Of a baptized imagination, prompt To catch from Nature's humblest monitors Whate'er they bring of impulses sublime. Thus sensitive must be the Monk, though paie With fasts, with vigils worn, depressed by years, Whom in a sunny glade I chanced to see The notes whose first faint greeting startled me, Whose sedulous iteration thrilled with joy My heart-may have been moved like me to think, Ah! not like me who walk in the world's ways, On the great Prophet, styled the Voice of One Crying amid the wilderness, and given, Now that their snows must melt, their herbs and flowers Revive, their obstinate winter pass away, Wandering in solitude, and evermore Voice of the Desert, fare-thee-well; sweet If that substantial title please thee more, thou Of a good wish sent after thee; from bower To bower as green, from sky to sky as clear, Thee gentle breezes waft-or airs that meet Thy course and sport around thee softly fan Till Night, descending upon hill and vale, Grants to thy mission a brief term of silence, And folds thy pinions up in blest repose. XV. AT THE CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI. GRIEVE for the Man who hither came be reft, And seeking consolation from above; To paint this picture of his lady-love: Thoughts that would stray from Heaven? The dream must cease To be; by Faith, not sight, his soul must live; Else will the enamoured Monk too surely find How wide a space can part from inward "VALLOMBROSA-I longed in thy shadiest peace The most profound repose his cell can give. XVI. CONTINUED. THE world forsaken, all its busy cares All trust abandoned in the healing might How subtly works man's weakness, sighs may heave For such a One beset with cloistral snares. wood When with life lengthened out came a desolate time, And darkness and danger had compassed him round, With a thought he would flee to these haunts of his prime, And here once again a kind shelter be found. And let me believe that when nightly the [Muse Did waft him to Sion, the glorified hill, Here also, on some favored height, he would choose To wander, and drink inspiration at will. Vallombrosa! of thee I first heard in the page Of that holiest of Bards, and the name for my mind Had a musical charm, which the winter of |